Boone Merrick here, glad to ride along. Now I'll tell you straight — I love this road, because for a stretch of pavement barely forty miles long, it carries more story than roads ten times its size. And unlike some places, up here you've got the room to hear it: long easy curves, big pull-offs, and time to think.
So here's our arrangement. Quinn keeps you safe and tells you what you're looking at. I'll fill the climb with the tales — the covered-wagon stunt that built this very road, the old Cherokee turnpike that turned into a road of sorrow, a chief who saved a president's life and got exiled for his trouble, and a mountain that once crawled with imported wild boar. True stories, every one, and stranger than any I could invent.
So settle in for the climb, keep your eyes on the road and the views, and I'll talk in the easy stretches. Eyes up, friend — the high country's waiting.
Photo: Brian Stansberry · CC BY 3.0
